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This study aims to assess the impact of intervention programs on women empowerment in northern Ghana and the role of skills training and financial independence on women empowerment.

A structured questionnaire, observations and informal interviews were used to gather data using the survey method. The sample consists of 321 girls from the non-formal track STAGE project in the Kasena Nankana West District of the Upper East Region. The data were analyzed using a structural equation model.

The results show that NGO intervention programs have a significant impact on women’s empowerment, skills acquisition mediates the relationship between NGO intervention programs and women empowerment. Financial independence does not mediate relationships but significantly affects women’s empowerment.

The discussion on women’s empowerment is not without mentioning the support of NGOs intervention programs. However, there is inadequate literature to explore the basic impacts of sponsored intervention programs on women’s empowerment in Ghana. The findings will provide directions for NGOs intervention programs to support women empowerment in Ghana.

The purpose of this study is to empirically examine the cause–effect relationships between workplace friendship and knowledge-sharing behavior, from a static perspective. Furthermore, it investigates the bi-directional relationship between the increase in both workplace friendship and knowledge-sharing behavior over same time periods, and also endeavors to identify whether there is a significant negative lagged effect of the increase in both workplace friendship on knowledge-sharing behavior, and vice versa, across time from a dynamic perspective.

The study conducts a three-wave questionnaire survey to test the research model. A latent change score approach was used to test the direct relationship between changes in workplace friendship and changes in knowledge-sharing behavior.

The findings reveal that knowledge-sharing behavior fosters workplace friendship and workplace friendship promotes the emergence of knowledge-sharing behavior. An increase in workplace friendship promotes an increase in knowledge-sharing behavior over same time periods. However, an increase in workplace friendship will lead to a lagged decrease of knowledge-sharing behavior across time, and vice versa.

The time interval in this study is a little short to capture the full changes in workplace friendship. Some important control factors and mediating mechanisms are not included in the research model.

This study guides managers to focus on various motivators to better strengthen workplace friendship and knowledge-sharing behavior and to consider and effectively respond to the negative side of workplace friendship and knowledge-sharing behavior across time.

This study emphasizes the predictivity of one important interaction patterns, namely, knowledge-sharing behavior on friendship at the workplace, from a static perspective. This study also shows the benefits of an increase in workplace friendship for the development of knowledge-sharing behavior in the same time period. Furthermore, the study presents a counterintuitive finding when taking the lag effect into consideration in exploring the relationship between changes both in workplace friendship and knowledge-sharing behavior, and identifies a negative side of both when viewed over longer periods.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate undergraduate student perceptions about the application of immersive technologies for enhancing the student learning experience. This study assesses the viewpoints of students from varying multidisciplinary backgrounds about whether immersive technologies can enhance their learning experience and increase their level of engagement in the context of higher educational delivery.

The research used a case study methodology adopting a questionnaire-based research mixed methods approach. In total, 83 participants completed the questionnaire. The purpose of the research was to evaluate and interpret students’ perspectives at higher educational level about the use of immersive technologies towards enhancing their learning experience. There was also a focus on remote educational delivery due to the legacy of COVID-19.

The findings suggest that there is still more empirical work to be undertaken regarding the application of immersive technologies in higher education. The study revealed that there are immersive benefits though preference for face-to-face teaching remains popular. The negative connotations associated with immersive technology use in higher education, (e.g. virtual reality), such as cost of equipment and motion sickness, substantiates the themes identified in the academic literature.

The study explores a diversity of immersive technologies and their application in higher education (HE) contexts. Findings indicate that although there are acknowledged pedagogical benefits of immersive technology use in HE prevalent barriers remain that require further empirical research if immersive technology use is to be universally used in the sector.

This chapter discusses the contributions and challenges involving regulatory technology (regtech) in financial services. It explores the salient areas where regtech can and should focus, observing existing and forthcoming industry, technology, and legal developments. This chapter outlines regtech use cases to clarify the shaping of that industry sector. It draws on developments in industry and academia, where significant research sets the tone and direction of technological solutions and regulatory drivers. A brief critical account of the benefits and challenges in regtech is offered. This chapter presents potential future directions, focusing on the salient areas of environmental, social, and governance (ESG), cryptocurrency, and decentralized compliance.

Among the topmost challenges, limiting the transformation of conventional public–private partnership (PPP) projects to meet net-zero targets is financial risk. This challenge is more prevalent in PPP projects in developing economies like Ghana, where financial investments have dwindled due to the recent COVID-19 recession. This paper aims to assess the key financial challenges in transitioning to net-zero PPP projects in Ghana.

The research method process was set as follows. First, a review of the literature to identify the major financial risks from journal articles, project reports and documents was undertaken, followed by questionnaire development and collection of data. Finally, the analysis of 134 questionnaire data was examined with the fuzzy synthetic evaluation.

The results indicate that the following financial challenges could hinder the transition to net-zero PPP projects in the country: increasing borrowing charges to build net-zero PPP projects due to the global covid-economic recession, poor project financial management, unstable local capital market and excessive labour, health and safety costs.

Although, the study was conducted in Ghana, a country in the Sub-Saharan African region, the outcomes have significant impacts for similar developing countries in research investigations into the problem.

Assistance is provided in this study for PPP project practitioners in identifying the key financial challenges and possible strategies to mitigate them.

Towards net-zero sustainability, this study highlights the crucial financial barriers to overcome in the rapid transition to climate change and zero carbon solutions in PPP projects.

The recruitment of undergraduate students within English universities is of vital importance to both the academic success and the financial stability of the organisation. Despite the primacy of the task, there has been a dearth of research looking at related performance and how to ensure that the process is optimised. The purpose of this study was to investigate the degree of variation both within a university and between different universities. The reliance that individual programmes and/or universities place on the Clearing process is key; given its uncertainty, resource demands and timing shortly before students take up their places.

The Nomogramma di Gandy diagrammatical approach utilises readily available data to analyse universities’ performance in recruiting students to different programmes, and the degree to which they each rely of the Clearing process. Inter-university performance was investigated on a whole-student intake basis for a sample of English universities, representative of type and region.

The study found that there were disparate patterns for the many programmes within the pilot university and also disparate patterns between different types of universities across England. Accordingly, universities should internally benchmark their programmes to inform both strategic and tactical decision-making. Similarly, Universities and Colleges Admissions Service benchmarking inter-university patterns could inform the overall sector.

The approach and findings provide lessons for analysing student recruitment which could be critical to universities’ academic and financial health, in an increasingly competitive environment.

Our objective was to evaluate the cost-utility of a health and social care integration programme for frail older adults in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Based on a study of the programme’s effectiveness, a Markov model was conducted to assess its cost-utility. The active intervention was the health and social care integration programme, and the control was the best standard of care so far. The setting was the patients' home of residence. A third-party payer perspective and a lifelong time horizon were adopted. All transition probabilities, quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) and costs were estimated from the effectiveness study. A discount rate of 3.5% was applied to costs and benefits. Costs are expressed in international dollars (Int$), calculated according to the International Monetary Fund’s purchasing power parity rate. Different sensitivity analyses were performed. The model was built in Excel 365. Construct validity, verification during model construction and internal consistency of the results were assessed.

The programme had an average cost of Int$18,768.22/QALY, and the control Int$42,609.68/QALY. In the incremental analysis, the programme saved Int$26,436.10 and gained 0.81 QALYs over the control. In the sensitivity analyses, in 99.96% of cases, the programme was less costly and more effective.

The cost savings can facilitate the scalability.

The health and social care integration programme for frail older adults was more effective and less costly than the best standard of care to date. This study contributes to the scarce evidence on the efficiency of integrated care strategies for frail older persons.

This chapter examines possible regulatory updates to address the challenges of monetary sovereignty and singleness of money. These two challenges are particularly pertinent to the new means of payments enabled by the use of distributed ledger technology (DLT). These new means of payment include cryptoassets such as bitcoin and ether, stablecoins and tokenized deposits. The degree to which these new means of payment can be a threat to monetary sovereignty and singleness of money can differ widely, depending on the contexts of the jurisdictions, as well as the details of these new means of payment themselves.

The objective of this study is to explore the structural attributes of the pharmaceutical industry before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic by examining the relationship between inventory and firm performance and developing a taxonomy of pharmaceutical firms based on the earns-turns matrix.

This study examines the inventory–firm performance linkage, considering both total inventory and its discrete inventory components in pharmaceutical firms. In addition, this research develops a new taxonomy of pharmaceutical firms based on the earns-turns matrix. A large panel dataset of firms in the US pharmaceutical industry was collected for the period 2000–2019.

The results reveal that strategic groups identified based on this taxonomy show different levels of profitability and inventory turns in the earns-turns matrix. Most pharmaceutical firms moved from the low-right to the top-left section in the earns-turns matrix, indicating that these firms have generally pursued profitability rather than effective inventory management.

This study explores the structural attributes of the pharmaceutical industry using the earns-turns matrix. This two-dimensional analysis may not, however, capture the full complexity of inventory–firm performance dynamics.

The mapping of strategic groups on the earns-turns matrix provides a useful tool for visual representations of the dynamics of strategic groups in terms of financial performance and inventory management performance. Practitioners can use the earns-turns matrix to benchmark their firm's position against their competitors.

This study broadens the scope of operations management research by introducing the earns-turns matrix as an empirical validation tool for operational and strategic management theories. This study emphasizes the effectiveness of the earns-turns matrix in analyzing strategic groups of pharmaceutical firms.

The study explores the relationship between self-control and various online promotional methods faced by consumers simultaneously, simulating how consumers with distinct levels of self-control act in the current Chinese Internet market.

The sample was collected from response of participants to the survey containing a self-control test and attitudes towards different promotional methods. This is a quantitative study using regression and analysis of variance (ANOVA).

Initially, the empirical study focuses on discount margin for both price-discounts and full-discounts, which implies that high discount margin has a negative impact on the quality perception of consumers. However, this impact is weakened under full-discounts. Subsequently, the study identifies that the negative influence of high discounts on quality perception is insignificant for the high self-control group facing various promotional activities simultaneously. Furthermore, it is found that consumers with a high level of self-control rely more on their quality perception rather than the discount margin of products.

The study covers self-control of consumers, a variety of promotional methods and simulation of the present Chinese online market, enriching the research topic of consumer behavior as well as Internet marketing.